Pro-Gun Punditry: Wednesday's Buckeye State Roundabout

There are more stories pertaining to our gun rights in Ohio then we can possibly draw attention to with individual daily commentary. But they are worthy of mention.

What follows is our weekly review of headlines from around the state though a pro-gun rights lens.

From details on several self-defense shootings to the latest comments on HB347 from the House Speaker and Senate President, this article deserves be a part of your required reading!

Click on the "Read More..." link below for seven days of headlines accompanied by short, concise pro-gun analysis.

Thursday in Toledo: Crack of pistol sends would-be thief on the run

A North Toledo gas station clerk fired a gun at a would-be robber yesterday, ending a holdup attempt. The intruder said he wanted some candy and gave change to the clerk at the Citgo station, 1708 East Manhattan Blvd., about 8:35 a.m. He then reached into the cash register when the clerk opened it and tried to steal money, police said. The clerk took the register off the counter and threw it onto the floor. The employee then reached onto a shelf, pulled out the store's 45-caliber pistol, and fired a shot at the suspect as he ran out the store, detectives said. The bullet hit the door. The thief was black, 25 to 30 years old, about 6 feet, 2 inches tall, 210 pounds, and wore a white Sean John T-shirt, blue jeans, and a red, white, and green sweatband on his head.

Back in 2003, after a rash of violent armed robberies in this city, Police Chief Michael Navarre advised worried store owners to to "take immediate cover - get away from the bullets," and added, "Pick up a baseball bat if that’s your only defense against bullets coming toward you." We're glad to see this store owner didn't take such poor advice.

Thursday in Toledo: Fatal shooting, home invasion might be linked

Columbus police are waiting for the results of a forensics test to see whether a fatal shooting and a home invasion Tuesday are related. Kahlief Rahseed Tye, 19, of Columbus, was found shot in the chest Tuesday evening on Perdue Avenue in Mifflin Township, more than half a mile from the house where Aishia McGee said she shot at an intruder about an hour earlier. The forensics test will show whether Tye was shot by a bullet from McGee’s gun. Until the test is done, which officials said would take a couple of days, investigators are treating the incidents as unrelated, said Columbus police spokesman Lt. Brent Mull....According to a police report, McGee said her daughter woke her Tuesday afternoon and told her someone was in their house, which is at 2421 Perdue Ave. in Columbus. After McGee heard someone upstairs, she grabbed her gun. When she saw a man about to walk down the stairs, McGee fired once, and the man fled from an upstairs door. Another intruder then left from the same door, the report said. Columbus police logged a 911 call reporting the robbery and shooting at about 5:30 p.m. About an hour later, Franklin County deputy sheriffs found Tye outside 2878 Perdue Ave. Medics took him to Ohio State University Medical Center, where he died....Tye was awaiting trial on aggravated robbery charges stemming from an incident in May on the North Side. He and another man were accused of trying to rob a woman on Albert Avenue. According to a police report, the other man raised a gun while Tye demanded her money. She didn’t have any, so the two fled....Charles Nowlin, 70, has seen his share of neighbors robbed but hopes the latest incident isn’t part of a trend. This week, he said, thieves stole gifts, electronics and food out of the refrigerator from a neighboring family just before Christmas. If the robbery and death are connected, Nowlin said he hopes the action will keep potential robbers away. "I think it will tell them, ‘Don’t come back this way,’ " said Nowlin, who has lived in his Perdue Avenue home for 15 years. "I don’t want people messing with me. I’m going to do what I have to to protect myself and my home."

Charles Nowlin has it right - news of armed self-defense can be a powerful deterrent to predators. A Dept. of Justice survey found that 40% of felons chose not to commit at least some crimes for fear their victims were armed, and 34% admitted having been scared off or shot at by armed victims. (James D. Wright and Peter H. Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous, Aldine de Gruyter, 1986) Hopefully lots of would-be criminals become aware of Mr. Nowlin's preparations.

Friday in Cleveland: Nurse Raped, Robbed While Walking To Car

A 25-year-old Cleveland man was in City Jail late Thursday, suspected of raping and robbing a woman on the campus of University Hospitals of Cleveland. Christopher Primous had not been charged as of late Thursday. The 53-year-old woman, who works for UH, was walking on the sidewalk behind the Iris S. and Bert L. Wolstein Research Building about 9:20 p.m. Wednesday. A man came up behind her, knocked her to the ground, sexually assaulted her and stole her purse. "I have a gun," he said as he ran away. She described the attacker to authorities, and University Circle police spotted a man on a bike fitting the description. An officer struggled with Primous, but he got away, running west across Case Western Reserve University's quad before being arrested near the Cleveland School of the Arts. James Benedict, senior vice president and general manager of operations at University Hospitals, e-mailed employees Thursday, alerting them to the attack and warning them to be extra careful around the campus. "This is a very rare occurrence in University Circle," said Debra Posner, spokeswoman for University Circle Inc.

When the Ohio General Assembly passed the Buckeye state's concealed carry law, it determined that college students who were otherwise qualified to obtain a concealed handgun license did not deserve to exercise that right when on campus. Please take to time contact your state legislators and tell them that keeping these campuses "gun free" succeeds only in creating a defenseless meat market for predators.

Saturday in Columbus: Ohio crime victims jolted by erroneous message

Thousands of Ohio crime victims received calls from a computer notification system on Friday mistakenly telling them inmates had been released, a state prisons spokesman said. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction believes the problem stemmed from a computer glitch that happened during maintenance on Thursday night. The agency was double-checking to ensure that no inmates were accidentally released, spokesman Brian Niceswanger said.
About 3,000 calls were made starting at noon on Friday, he said. The system was shut down when the glitch was discovered about an hour later when crime victims started calling. "It's just been such a traumatic day for the crime victims in our community," said Joy Thomas, program director of the Clark County victim/witness services. Kaye Wintrow of Springfield stayed home from work because she was so upset by the recorded voice telling her that her son's killer was released from prison — four years earlier than she expected. "I couldn't believe what I was hearing," Wintrow said. "I guess I listened to it three times I was so stunned."

Since many of this political action committee's volunteers either are victims of crime themselves (or have family members who are), any story like this about how their situations were made even more uncomfortable catches our eye. Quite the accidental New Year's gift from the State of Ohio, eh?

Saturday in Fremont: 4 Fremont men charged with stealing 10 guns

Four Fremont men have been arrested for stealing at least 10 guns in the city, Fremont police said. The men are being held in the Sandusky County Jail in lieu of bonds ranging from $50,000 to $115,000....The men were arrested Wednesday and Thursday and have been charged with stealing 10 guns and about $300 cash from a home in the 300 block of Buchanan Street on Dec. 15, Fremont police said. The Sandusky County sheriff's office is investigating if the men have been involved in other burglaries where firearms were taken throughout the county in the past few weeks and they could face additional charges from that investigation, Fremont police said.

Criminals who want guns will do anything they can to find out where they can find them. It is highly likely that these criminals knew this home contained firearms, and specifically targeted it for the purpose of stealing them. Why does the establishment media think it a good idea to publish shopping lists of CHL-holders to make it that much easier?

Sunday in Columbus: Ex-Ohio State star Clarett accused of robbing two people

Former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett was accused of robbing two people at gunpoint in an alley behind a bar early Sunday, the latest trouble for the Buckeyes star who left the school in disgrace and failed to gain early entry into the NFL. Clarett fled the scene and was wanted on two counts of aggravated robbery. According to police, he left in a white sport-utility vehicle with two other men and took only a cellphone from his alleged victims, who weren't injured. The 22-year-old Clarett fled when the bar owner or manager, who knew both Clarett and the victims, came into the alley and identified him shortly before 2 a.m. Sunday, detectives said. One alleged victim, Lucas Nyarko, 28, told the Columbus Dispatch that he could not identify Clarett as the man who robbed him. He said his friend identified Clarett after police showed her photographs. Nyarko said they were approached by a man dressed in black, who told them he needed something. Nyarko said the man pulled up his shirt and showed them a gun tucked in his pants. The man moved the gun to the front of his waistband and told them to empty their pockets. Nyarko said after he handed the man his cellphone, a woman came out of the nightclub and yelled, "Maurice!" in greeting to the man, who hugged her. He then carried the woman, who police said was bar owner Tashona Corvi, toward the SUV, put her down and got in the vehicle.

You don't even have to be a Buckeye fan to be saddened by this story. Clarett turned himself in after the Fiesta Bowl game Monday, and his attorney says he plans to plead not-guilty.

Monday from Columbus: Work on reforms to go on, leaders say

2005 was a busy year for economic and other reforms in Ohio according to state leaders and many of the issues which led to those reforms will continue to take legislative center state in 2006....[Karen Tabor, spokeswoman for Ohio House of Representatives Speaker Jon Husted], couldn't comment on Husted's plans for recently introduced legislation aimed at changing public records and other portions of Ohio's young concealed-carry law. The new bill, introduced by state Rep. Jim Aslanides, a Coshocton Republican, also aims to change the way firearms are carried in a motor vehicle. "It would certainly receive its due diligence in committee hearings," she said. [Ohio Senate President Bill] Harris said typically such bills need a lot of fine tuning. "I think that's legislation that can get very complex, just in what the language is," he said. "It's going to take all the parties working together. It'll continue to be a debate. It's not a cut-and-dry issue."

Hearings on Ohio House Bill 347 will begin soon. Have you contacted your elected representatives to tell them you expect their full support for this important legislative reform? If not, please do so today!

Monday in Columbus: Mom of 5 is beaten, left to die in house

...Police said they were notified that a woman had been assaulted and needed medical help at 221 Walnut St.
When officers arrived, they looked through a window and saw [Michelle] Morrison lying on the floor. They forced their way through a locked door and found her unresponsive, with "visible signs of injury about the head, possibly as a result of blunt force," Lt. Jeffrey Ruth said in a news release.... Michelle’s father, Michael, said he doesn’t know of anyone who would want to hurt his daughter. He made her take karate lessons as a teenager, he said, but she didn’t like it so he let her quit. She was tiny, he said, even after the babies. "Now, of course, I wonder: If she’d have stayed with it, would it have made a difference?"

Due to part of our volunteer duties as writers for Buckeye Firearms Association, we spend time far more time reading crime blotters than the average Ohioan. Yet reading stories like this gets no easier. It's time to resolve to make sure your family and friends don't have to be left wondering if self-defense preparations would have made a difference in a tragic situation within your own circles. Encourage your loved ones to obtain their Ohio concealed handgun license this year!

Tuesday in Columbus: Two attorney general candidates seek most new laws

Most state senators introduced just a handful of bills in busy legislative year that included massive changes to the tax code in the two-year state budget and an overhaul of the election system. Two of the 33 senators, however, are responsible for 17 percent of all Senate bills introduced in 2005: First-year Sen. Tim Grendell led the pack with 21, followed by Sen. Marc Dann with 19 _ as many as the Youngstown Democrat introduced in two years of the previous session. The prolific pair also are both running for attorney general, the state's top official in charge of enforcing all those laws. They insist their candidacies and the bill introductions are coincidence. "The bulk of my bills were introduced before I even decided to run for attorney general," said Grendell, a Republican from Chesterland in northeast Ohio. Dann, who announced he was running in November, said the same of his bills, many of them aimed at changing the structure of state government in response to an investment scandal at the state insurance fund for injured workers. "It's the way I do business," he said. "I had no concept I would be running for anything other than re-election as a senator." Still, that pile of proposals can't hurt on the campaign trail, right? "Looking back, I think I had a very successful first year in the Senate, and certainly will be pointing back to that as being effective," Grendell said. One of the 21, a moratorium on government taking property for use by private developers, passed unanimously and was enacted. Two others were identical to companion House bills that were enacted. Three more _ including those making vehicle emissions testing free and quashing a proposed state parks fee _ were rolled into the state budget. Dann, in the party outnumbered 22-11, didn't have so much success. But his moratorium on new landfills for construction debris during crafting of new rules also was put in the budget. He also succeeded in amending other legislation.

Both of these men supported Ohio's concealed carry law when it was passed in 2003, and are certainly going to be good pro-gun picks in their respective party primaries. But as the general election approaches, pro-gun voters are going to have to begin the tough job of weighing the differences between the two. Count on Buckeye Firearms Association to be there to provide all the information you will need to help in your decision-making process.